PTI | 06:12 PM,Dec 22,2011 Colombo, Dec 22 (PTI) The government today turned down the demand of Sri Lanka's main Tamil party TNA for police powers to provincial governments, amid decentralisation talks in a bid to find a political settlement to the grievances of the minority ethnic community. "Police powers cannot be given and will not be given. There are reasons why they cannot be given," Cabinet spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella told reporters here. The government firmly refused to accept the demand of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) for police powers to provincial councils. Rambukwella said Sri Lanka had learnt from the Indian experience on the downside of conferring police powers to provincial governments. "Madam Sonia Gandhi had to seek permission to travel. A former chief minister was assaulted and dragged along the ground by his own police force. These type of things cannot be allowed," he stressed. Police and land powers to provinces figure high on TNA's direct talks with the government which are having a rough ride presently. In addition, the TNA seeks a re-merger of the north and east provinces. The government is averse to such contentious demands from the main Tamil party. According to the thirteenth amendment to the Sri Lankan constitution adopted in 1987, the police and land powers are subjects to be devolved to all nine provincial councils in the country. The TNA and government started talks in January, with President Mahinda Rajapaksa opting to appoint a high-powered ministerial committee to discuss the grievances of the Tamil community in Lanka.
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The Hon. R. Sampanthan Speech
14th December, 2011
[10.29 a.m.]
ගරු ආර්. සම්පන්දන් මහතා
(மாண்புமிகு ஆர். சம்பந்தன்)
(The Hon. R. Sampanthan)
Mr. Chairman. I am happy to partake in this Discussion on the Ministry of External Affairs.
A country’s external policy, Sir, must be in the national interest. I think that is fundamental. It is inevitable that a country’s external policies will be a reflection of its internal policies or its domestic policies in a multiethnic, multilingual, multicultural and pluralistic society such as Sri Lanka is. If a country’s domestic policies are fundamentally flawed, it is inevitable that its foreign policy will be skewed, distorted and consequently based upon expediency rather than on a mature well thought out foreign policy. That would be, Sir, the theme of my speech today.
